By Greg Garrison and Val Walton 2008 Religion News Service BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — They were pastors and civil rights leaders who broke the back of unjust segregation laws and set in motion the transformation of America into a more racially tolerant nation. Forty years after the violent death of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.…

Associated Press – March 31, 2008 VATICAN CITY – The church official spearheading the cause to make Pope John Paul II a saint said Monday he has finished a roughly 2,000-page draft of a report supporting the late pontiff’s canonization. Two days before the Vatican marks the third anniversary of John Paul’s death, Monsignor Slawomir…

Associated Press – March 31, 2008 LONDON – Some of England’s most sacred soil was disturbed Monday for the first time in more than four decades as archaeologists worked to solve the enduring riddle of Stonehenge: When and why was the prehistoric monument built? The excavation project, set to last until April 11, is designed…

Associated Press – March 30, 2008 VATICAN CITY – Islam has surpassed Roman Catholicism as the world’s largest religion, the Vatican newspaper said Sunday. “For the first time in history, we are no longer at the top: Muslims have overtaken us,” Monsignor Vittorio Formenti said in an interview with the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano. Formenti…

More from Beliefnet and our partners
More from Beliefnet and our partners